"She assumed that I did not speak Swedish."
Translation:Hon antog att jag inte talade svenska.
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In subordinate clauses, the adverb (inte) comes before the verb. It’s a tricky feature of Swedish. Look at these examples:
- Det regnar inte i dag. (It doesn’t rain today.)
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Jag gick ut, eftersom det inte regnade. (I went out, since it didn’t rain.)
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Han kommer alltid. (He always comes.)
- Jag tror att han alltid kommer. (I think that he always comes.)
The subordinate clause can also come first:
- Eftersom bussen ofta är försenad, kommer hon sent till jobbet. (Since the bus is often late, she is late for work.)
- När jag inte jobbar, lagar jag mat. (When I don’t work, I cook.)
Watch out for words like att, eftersom, när, då since they’re often followed by a subordinate clause and pay attention to the word order then.
616
Hi. So, I've finally found a good place to ask this question : I don't understand the distinction between the kind of (sub-)clause where it's "[subject] inte [verb]", and the kind where it's "inte [verb] [subject]"
In this example, if "I did not speak Swedish" is a subclause, why don't we say "talade jag" (instead of "jag talade"), and if it is not, why do we say "inte talade" (instead of "talade inte")?
Thanks.
616
So, if I get this correctly, all subclauses have the "inte before the verb" rule, but only subclauses which are not introduced by a conjunction applies the "verb before subject" verb. Right?